Chatham Historic Dockyard
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Chatham Historic Dockyard is a maritime museum on part of the site of the former royal/naval dockyard at Chatham in Kent, England. Chatham Dockyard covered 400 acres (1.6 km²) and was one of the Royal Navy's main facilities for several hundred years until it was closed in 1984.
After closure the dockyard was divided into three sections. The easternmost basin was handed over to Medway Ports and is now a commercial port. Another slice was converted into a mixed commercial, residential and leisure development. 80 acres (324,000 m²), comprising the 18th century core of the site, was transferred to a charity called the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and is now open as a visitor attraction. It claims to be the world’s most complete dockyard of the Age of Sail. The attraction has five main elements:
- 3 historic warships: HMS Gannet (1878), HMS Cavalier (R73) and HMS Ocelot (S17).
- The Ropery: a Victorian rope factory.
- Wooden Walls: a recreation of the working life of the dockyard in 1758.
- Museum of the Royal Dockyard: with model ships and other exhibits
- Lifeboat: a museum about the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution which has 17 historic vessels.
Workers at the dockyard performed eight years of restoration work on the Havengore, the ceremonial vessel that carried the body of Winston Churchill during his state funeral. In addition the dockyard is acting as custodian of artifacts, masts and rigging from the Cutty Sark- and from the Medway Queen, whilst their hulls are being restored elsewhere.
Records of the ships built at Chatham go back to 1646. [1]
[edit] References
- ^ The Historic Dockyard Chatham Guide Book
[edit] External links
